Progressive imperialists & Afghanistan

[mix]

There has always been, historically, a strain of European and American progressives and leftists who have supported empire, usually phrased in the transformative language of "civilization."

Those who support our country's ongoing occupation and war in Afghanistan are in this camp. Their arguments usually rest on the claim that we will make Afghani lives better by bringing them "rights" and our own techniques and technology.

"Progress," in other words, is what is always promised to the benighted.

There are, of course, other arguments crasser and coarser, based on simple unyielding support for President Obama, specious geopolitical reasoning, and outright revenge.

The US occupation of Afghanistan is nothing more than empire-building and empire always end, for the victims and perpetrators, in sadness and collapse.

[leftstreet]

1. K&invisibleR

[joecool65]

2. Yes, those poor Taliban

I feel really bad we are fighting them since they love women, people not like them, or anything else that is not part of their culture so much.
:sarcasm:

[mix]

4. .

[mix]

8. the great great game

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQTLNDoxWCA

[Nuclear Unicorn]

3. Obama is not an imperialist

At worse he is triangulating polls to hold onto the fickle indie vote.

That alone would break my heart because soldiers are not meant for gaining another 5 points in the next Gallup survey of likely voters.

I uinderstand your frustration but hyperbole like imperialist when ascribe to Obama does nothing to help. How are we supposed to present a political bloc capable of drowning out the REAL war mongers and showing our pols that we are where their political fortunes lie when we are tearing each other apart with hateful words?

I'm sorry but I must unrec your OP for its inflammatory tones.

Hurt? Dismayed? Confused? Want peace?

Me too...but this isn't peace its just more fighting, albeit without bullets.

PEACE

[mix]

5. What Obama is or is not is irrelevant.

US policy in Afghanistan is imperialist. It has been globally so since WWII. Where has this country made lives better by interfering in the internal politics of other states? El Salvador? Iraq? Afghanistan? Other than western Europe after WWII, the record is a litany of human rights atrocities and poverty.

Progressive imperialists who support our occupation of Afghanistan are in denial about the enormous destruction US foreign policy has brought to certain countries, particularly those in the Islamic world.

[ipaint]

6. We will never leave.

Garrisoning the Gulf

Even as it lurches toward a quasi-withdrawal from Iraq, the U.S. military has been hunkering down and hardening its presence elsewhere in the Middle East with little fanfare or press coverage. There has been almost no discussion in this country of a host of possible repercussions that might come from this, ranging from local opposition to the U.S. military's presence to the arming of undemocratic and repressive regimes in the region. With the sole exception of Iran, the U.S. military has fully garrisoned the nations of the Persian Gulf with air bases, naval bases, desert posts, training centers, and a whole host of other facilities, while also building up the military capacity of nearby Jordan.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175159/tomgram:_nick_turse,_out_of_iraq,_into_the_gulf

While everyone is focused on the shiny "more troops to afghanistan" trinket, we are building our military presence all over the middle east. Afghanistan is just one of many ventures. We will populate their country with bases too.

I fully expect obama to support this ongoing surge of empire into the middle east. The soft withdrawal date in afghanistan and the withdrawal in iraq are our watered down pr versions of "public options" offered by the pentagon to keep the middle class at bay and the poor signing up to man our new bases and strongholds.

It's too late for real withdrawal.

Grayson was right, the best foreign policy is just "leave them alone". We are so far past that option now. I'd settle for a president who actually tells the truth. Unfortunately we are way past that, too.

[mix]

7. .